Ex libris and annotations in pen of the Dutch philosopher Leo Polak on endpaper. First published in 1766 under the pseudonym M. Boulanger, this work is usually attributed to D'Holbach. This 1776 edition was published without a name. D'Holbach, Edesheim, 1723 - Paris, 1789, was a radical Enlightenment thinker. Because of his uncompromising materialistic and atheistic philosophy, he had to publish under a pseudonym. He contributed to Diderot's Encyclopédie as an author, translator and editor. He was famous for his salon, visited by the who's who of the Enlightentment such as d'Alembert, J-J. Rousseau, Helvetius, F. M. Grimm, A. Smith, D. Hume, J. Priestley, and Edward Gibbon.